Andy Wirth

for many years. Four lane but at the top it's like a meadow and I remember playing that right in that area. But you have a relationship with Eddie Vedder. How do you know Eddie Vedder?

name it, but then got into Pearl Jam. And what's interesting is I had a bad skydamming accident about ten years ago. In fact, coming up on the ten year anniversary of that accident, which I want I call my live day. When we talked about that week, certainly can but one of his tunes that I really accidentally came into, accidentally stumbled into, came to me at a very critical moment what I was bleeding out and dying, and I eventually died, but they brought me back and which worked

out well. It was a good day. But one of his tunes called just Breathe was halfway through the closing credits of a movie about a very good friend of mine who's a good, great horseman. His name is Buck Branneman out of Sheridan, Wyoming. He had worked with Nicholas Sparks on the movie the book A Horse Whisper with

Redford on the movie Horse Whisper. But he had been doing a whole bunch of horse work for years and years, and they made this indie film about him, One Sun Dance, and I'm watching it for the first time and halfway through the ending of the closing credits, just brief comes on and it just doesn't make any sense. I mean, you got to keep in mind that when I introduced Buck in Steamwa Springs, Colorado, where I used to live,

to Tanny Tucker, I mean, that was the deal. I mean he thought tannyse the sun rose and said on Tanny Tucker, and he probably right. It probably still does. But in this case caught me off guard because what is a Pearl Jam song doing at the end of a movie about Buck? Brannman curious called him found out four months later. And I had known this song. This song came to me at a very critical crucial time.

and a's who he is today because of that. He mentioned that song just fit, It just worked, and the song had meeting and more so that's how it kind of related to his It was a tip of the hat, regardless of the music type, tip of the hat to what that song speaks to. Okay, so let's go back ten years ago. You're skydiving. How much experience had you had skydiving? A fair amount. I've got what's called AFF Accelerated free Fall Certification.

Force guy, and I had to. I had to. I got to jump with them quite a bit, actually, Paris, Lodi Davis, all over California anytime could find an airplane with the door love jump out of it. So got into that in a substantial way and had a fair amount of experience. The thing is jumping with these guys. I had the opportunity. Most of them had jumps well over ten or fifteen thousand. Most of them actually jump

for a living. Most of the guys that I would jump with with whom I would jump excuse me, would would actually be in films. You know. JT worked with on Transformers three. I mean, these are very high level folks. So I was kind of the rookie tagging along. But because of that I got a fair amount of experience quickly and had the opportunity to jump with some outstanding people.

or an avalanche whatever inbounds, that's okay with me. But there's certain things I don't want to take a risk doing. Begging the question, other than skydiving, are you a limit tester in other areas? Oh.

don't necessarily volunto. But I just say that maybe I'm not too sure I think about it like that, but I totally well have you have you bungee jumped? Oh? Heck yeah?

I was backcountry ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park, did quite a bit of hig angle rescue that was more industrial climbing because it was rescue than anything else. But I think some might see Hiengel rescue as being a little bit extreme. I don't know, but I thought it was great.

entire life. It doesn't take a particular a great deal of skill or athleticism even but it is fucking fun, man. It is so exhilarating, thrilling joy. From the first time I jumped in Paris, California, getting aff I just couldn't stop smiling. So I just love it. Absolutely love that. And I don't know if that's testing limits or adrenaline whatever, it just all they can do is tell you I love it. But so it was down there, JT and I and other friends would go down and jump down

a load. I quite a bit. We lived in Trucky. I was CEO at squad Ally and Alpine Meadows for a little bit. Got hooked into JT. Great guy, great dear friend of mine and the late great Timmy Dutton who died tragically a year later in an air to air accident skydiving the same location. Still breaks my heart to think about Timmy because he's remarkable kid, remarkable young man with an incredible story. He's overcome more than most people have U and he had. He was just the

best ever. Talked all show long about Timmy Dutton. But so Timmy, JT and I are jumping. Oh, actually it wasn't this weekend we were jumping with were jumping with some other friends. We had gone down to Davis to jump, but the winds were blusteries, so we got blown out there. They weren't flying that day on that Saturday, so we drove to Lodi, which is not too far from Davis, I guess and load Ie is kind of considered. With a smile on my face, I'd say it's a little

bit of the truck stop of drop zones. They kind of are flying and jumping all the time and it's a good place, but it's, you know, just there and it works, and we ended up getting in a load. So what happened is we ended up in classic three or four cloaked things in sequence took place because we have a fair amount of experience jumping. We jumped out of the plane light the last group jumping Number two's

pilot flew a slightly bad jump line number three. Importantly, the winds changed fold about one hundred and twenty degrees from the time we took off to the time we got to fourteen thousand feet AGL and the green light

came on to jump. And then the last thing is because JT and Timmy and I had jumped quite a bit and those guys base jump, we tend to pull low, so instead of pulling at four thousand feet AGL, which gives you a fair amount of time to remedy problems like a bad wing, a bad canopy or something like that, or spiral kick out of twisted lines. You have time to remedy. But we're pretty competent, and there's that whole confidence competent breakover curve. And I violated that curb right there,

pulled low on a day I shouldn't have it. Turns out, the entire plane it was a d day landing. Everybody was scattered. But by the time I pulled it was that twelve hundred feet AGL, pretty close to the ground under canopy, and I didn't Nobody realized that the wines had folded at that point, including me. That's why I was a DDA landing. Everybody went everywhere. So got my canopy up, got a good wing, I'm gonna looking. I'm going, oh, I have a headwind right now, and I should have

a tailwind. And when you don't have propulsion like in airplanes, this matters. And so you take off from and you seek to land on the drop zone. Now I'm aiming at the drop zone under canopy at say a thousand

feet AGL, and your cent rates pretty decent. And I have a set of power lines in front of me, in front of me and to the right, and a couple of buildings, and I remember thinking I think this is a crack up that it's you know, skydiving Onlike skiing, for instance, there's not much of a gradient of injuries right. In other words, skiing you can hurt yourself a little bit or a lot. In skydiving, it's pretty binary. There's

not much to it, right. All I could think about was the headline kind of the skydiver tried to make it underneath the power lines, right, end up like one of those bugs on a bug zapper. Okay, that one through my mind was nope. So I look down to my left and now I'm about eight hundred Things move pretty quickly in this moment. Ended up hook turning, So flying my canopy, pull hard left and hook turned into

what turned out to be a vineyard. And if you didn't know what in vineyards, they have these very high tensile strong wires hold up the vines. And I'm lining up this landing. I'm pretty decent under canopy and land and blinding it up. Still a bit of a blustery day, but I'm like, okay, pull this off. Nothing panicky in my mind at this point. But right as I'm flaring, which is you've flown enough to know when you land an airplane, to see the pilots put down the flaps.

So when you flare a canopy, it's the same effective things as a plane pulling the flaps down. Right, basically bring yourself to a clothes of land on your feet. Well, right as I'm flaring this, I remember catching out of the front left's risers on my canopy. My parachute pushed about foot to the right, and I'm landing in between these rows of vines and by god, if that little

foot it feels like foot. Maybe it was more pushed me enough right right at the right time where one of those high tension wires caught my arm pulled it off and uh and uh at the at the elbow and uh yeah, that's that's okay. Just dont cover that, okay. Was it completely detached. It was detached at the elbow, and there was this thin strip of tissue turns out very valuable thin strip of tissue that was there. But yeah, I know, my my forearm and right hand were kind

of on the ground ground. I was kneeling because the shrouds of my canopy were held up behind me on the vines. And uh yeah, so yeah, I was detached minus a shred of tissue. And I have to mention this because I again I think it's I look back with it worked out really well that day, it worked out great, and but I reached down. I'll talk about all that I did. I've done a bunch of work in trauma, right, I've been around trauma. And there's a question you asked me about eight minutes ago that I

not answered. But I have never had anything like this happened to me. But I treated a whole lot of people in bad places and trauma, climbing accidents, car accidents, you name it. I've done a whole bunch of stuff in trauma. I've been in the blood. I have a stick if you will, and so, but never in this case with myself, if I had something like this, so, I hadn't clicked into that gear yet. But I reached

down right when it happened, I looked down. And do you ever see that Money Python movie, Monty Python in the Holy Grail? Of course, remember when the night cuts off his arm as a blood spurt OUTA that was me. It was spurting out, man, it was it was going after it. And I hope that it doesn't gross out some of your listeners.

background experience and more. It is quite critical how these things, in a crazy way converged into one moment my mind. But I did feel pain when I took my fist because I couldn't make a tourniquet. I just had a great tourniquet on my left hand, an altimeter had a Velkoz trap, but I couldn't get it off to put it back on the stub. So, as most anybody who's listening, as any trauma experiencers with you have that kind of bleeding,

there's two things, tournique or direct pressure. In this case, I took my fist and put it underneath my stub and slowed down the bleeding. That was painful, I have to say. In the past, I've said that that was a fair amount of discomfort, but I think it'd be fair to call it pain. At that point, I felt the pain.

And now I do some quick calculations more in my clinical or trauma mode of how fast I'll bleed out with that, Now there are arteries that we can sever that will bleed out a lot faster. This one's pretty in the top five, right, the one that runs down your arm.

But point being in that first component, that first element of the situation, I was in that full trauma mode, and that was kind of the first component, it was okay, interesting to say the least, there was a little bit more to it. That's probably a good way to tie off on that. What's then interesting is I flashed back to all of my experience both Heinengel Rescue Rocky mountin National Park and a volunteer fire and ambulance crew in

Northwest Colorado. Everything gunshot wounds too, meaning from hunting and you name it. And almost every paramedic, every EMT has their stick and they come up on you and you probably if you've had this. Hey, Bob, my name is Andy, I'm medically trained. I'm here to help you. I want you to write and exactly.

But number two, critically, the goal there is to keep shock away because shock in and of itself is a psycho psycho, somatic, psycho, what's the word I'm looking for. It's a bodily reaction that is both mental, emotional as well as physical to protect the body. And shock will kill you. Shock kills so many times because it does things to your heart rate, your blood and more. So I went into this motive I have to keep shock away, and that was part of the tail end of the

clinical side. And my whole thing is it's not uncommon. It's probably seven out of ten empts and parameds have just breathed. Bob, I just want you to breathe, and just breathe came into my brain. I'm not kidney, but I was like a meteor out of the heavens into my brain. The tune came into my head that I just was learning on the guitar a few months ago. I was not aware of it till the Buck Brandaman song or movie my good friend Buck, and it really helped me a ton, because at that point there was

not much more I could do. I had stuffed my fist underneath the humorous slowed down the bleeding as much as I could, and then I was in waiting game because I couldn't do anything else because my trouds were caught up in the vines behind me and Marma's four. I was sitting there and that song came to me. And what's interesting is I was applying to myself these words that I applied to one hundred and fifty other people in rough spots, really tough spots, some of them.

I'll finish off on that tale with the helicopter. Make it to the helicopter is a really important element. But that tune came to me and which I can tell you it's to me. It's remarkable and fascinating. I've never had anything like this ever happened to me my entire life.

It was this convergence, the bland in my mind and the first if you know the song, yes, I understand every life must end, maybe not exactly, you know, kind of mister Rogers, Disney Sesame Street happy words when you're sitting there dying, And at this point, I think I'm think, I'm pretty sure I had like a couple three minutes left, but the words gave me something to think about, or the words myself. But then the lyrics gave me something to consider as I sit alone, I know someday we

must go and incredibly powerful stuff. Bob Man, I gotta tell you I had never considered. I always knew about the risk of Scott having done stuff, but never been in this place. And I guess the punchline. The whole thing is, I was certain I was going to die of that. It was a clinical thing. It wasn't any kind of It was just a clinical, straight up deal. I'm not going to make it. There's nobody owhere near because it's a d Day landing. Everybody scattered and nobody

knows I'm here in this vineyard. And those lyrics came to me and Bob, they helped me come to peace with something I had never even considered, and that was dying. It helped me come to peace with death, and that made everything perfect. And I was at peace in those three four moments, three or four minutes, five minutes, and

that meant everything. Which I slowed down my breathing, deep breathing, and I kept cycling through those lyrics, and I don't I've listened to a couple of your podcasts, and I tried to think most folks try to be polite and try not to cuss a lot. But fucking amazing what that song did that afternoon, because the song kept me alive, and it did zeroed out in my mind because it played a role on the psychology of trauma, psycho all the psychological aspects of trauma, what it can do to people.

And it just stemmed from me saying just breathe because that was my stick for being amt and didn't know the song until the Buck movie, and gosh, I don't twelve fifteen minutes later, a gaal named Amanda came to me and she had not had any experience with trauma, so I felt badly because she hadn't had any experience with trauma, but I had asked her to kind of coach her through for forming a tourniquet out of my altimeter and that really helped a lot, because then I

was able to move my left fist out of my armpit and then I don't know however, many minutes later, ambulance came up. They somebody had already dispatched to Flight for Life out of UC Davis and so I'll just complete the story and you can unpack it as you see fit manif shapes. This creates this tournique end up getting backboarded. I also think it was a little bit interesting because it was a volunteer crew from Lodike, California.

He was working on me, and I was somewhat coaching them through this, which was kind of freaking some of those guys out because they went to put oxygen on me because I said, guys, I need some MO two and they put a nasel caniola on me, and I said, guys, I think I'm down quite a few quarts. Do you think you could put a mask on me and crank it to seven? And I remember the guy looking at me like the hell, what the hell? And they went

to the sea collar on me. I said, look, there's no mechanism on the neck, but it's cool put a sea collar. And put a sea collar on me. I said, no, dude, you're putting a size two on me. I'm not twelve. And so I'm coaching the through again. I thought it was funny, but maybe in retrospect itness. Then I hear the turbines of the helicopter backboard me. Get me set and it turns out they had to a rubber tire vehicle in the ambulance to the landing zone for the helicopter.

And flash back to my days in Rock Ammant National Park. There's lots of times we put people on overnight rescues on Long Peak, Long's Peak and other climbs that honestly, we would stabilize them, transport them, get them to a good spot, and then package them up, get them on the helicopter and then fly them down to Denver. And there was three out of five times there are people that there's like, no way they're going to make it. I'm not kidding you, no way that tragically, that guy's

a goner. Too much trauma, blood loss, name it internal injuries. And it's just amazing, amazing high five and the tip of the hat. Any pyramids that are flying, the flight nurses that are in these helicopters do amazing things. And those three at all, those folks, most of them that I know about, they live because of the flight nurses. And so that came to me as things were. They got the right sea color on me, got some O two and I'm making my way and I kept singing

the tune. By this point, JT was on me and he was giving me encouragement and he said, you kept singing the song. We couldn't quite make it out to me. I was singing it out loud. It was at vetter song just breathe the entire thing, and couldn't meant so much to me. At that point I realized how the value of that song. But inside I was thinking about it. If I can make it to the helicopter, I have a shot, because I had done that so many times

with others. I might have a shot. Because at that point I was starting to get the shroud, you know whatever. The I was starting to go. I was starting to go leave for good, one way trip. I'm bind strassa. But I figured if I could make it to the helicopter, there's a shot. And fucking amen made it to the helicopter.

They slammed the doors. I'll never forget my friend, and asking the flight nurse who had his advisor down, I think he'll make it, and the guy goes like this, he shook his head no, and I looked up and I said, I'm right here. I'm sitting right here, and they slammed the door. They crank up the turbines, blinding lights from the sun, and I was like, I looked up to the guy and I said, I put fucking everything I could into getting here, and it's all on

you now. I got nothing left to give on this fight. It was a fifteen to twenty minute fight to get to that moment. Apparently I died about a minute and something later, and this guy brought me back. Amazing, freaking amazing. I just love it. So October thirteenth this year and a couple of weeks, I'll be going out to Paris, California and jumping to celebrate my ten year anniversary with a couple of dear friends, including JT. Holmes. Another good friend who's a Navy seal who stepped off about two

years ago, Zach Armstrong. And We're going to go celebrate my a love day because I was dead and I'm not and I'm alive and I have an arm.

from execution. Without going too much deeper into that, but in this case, my confidence was probably outstripping and then creating a deficit of judgment, and probably the major deficit in judgment there. The problem was thinking I was too cool for school and pulling love. Had I pulled it four thousand, three thousand instead of one thousand because I was jumping with all these other guys, probably would have been able to rectify and remedy the situation in a

different situation. In other words, if I had been instead of one thousand feet with a tailwind, I might have been at four thousand feet with a tailwind or thirty five hundred feet with a tailwind and been able to make it over the power lines and not be a headline, or choose some other landing area other than vineyards. But I was presented with what I was presented with, and in that case, it was not good judgment on my part.

don't know make it through that. So phase one was glad to be here. What's going on now? And what's the next surgery? What are we trying to get done going I became quite good at surgery, as I have a pretty good stick when it comes to the antiseesiologist. Here's what to do, here's a size tube to intubate me. Surgeries longer in eight hours, put goop in my eyes.

Because anyway, made it through that. Then getting out was the next six months after hospital was in all kinds of petea and my arm was still the size of a rugby ball because swelling. I still had ongoing surgeries went on for a little while, but it'd be fair

to say that I was pretty heavily medicated. Bob and the meds were a mets on board with oxycotton oxy coot on GABA penton, which is a nerve med, and in that time frame, it was still about cool that I'm here, great that I'm here, encouragement from friends, everybody, from Jeremy Jones, J T. Holmes, famous people and not famous people. I didn't care. I was encouraged, glad. But then the darkness, you know, Tolkien fan, the darkness of

Mortar set in. And I don't know if it's probably a combination of things, but the reality is I started getting pretty down, pretty f and depressed. I came into the Jump pretty fit. I was working out, running, traveling, all kinds of stuff. But now is me. I was one hundred and forty five pounds. I was weak, I had no muscle, and I was working with one pt guy who's outstanding. You said, Andy, I can see you're bummed, But you know, there's a million things you can still do.

There's about seven things you used to do you can no longer do. What are you going to focus on? And that helped pick me up. But the long tail be truthful is that for the next year to two years, I had a pretty damned good excuse to ask for some help with pain. And I had doctors that were excellent, doctors who were prescribing me opiates to help with that pain, and it'd be fair to say that I was. I had a very difficult time stepping off of the opiate.

some ways. But they talked about heroin addicts will get oxyconton oxy cota and if they can't get heroin, and to scare the shit out of me, I'm not done drugs my entire life. I'm that guy. I wear wranglers, I work with horses, all that kind of stuff. Copenhagen Tequila. Never had any need to do drugs, never did In this case, I was scared shitless and I stopped for a bit, but then ended up a couple months later a couple of bounds with pain, get back in them,

and basically was to help support the words of JT. JT. Holmes and other folks around me to get off it. And then there's all there two guys, they didn't know it.

Two guys at the time were with Navy Seal Team four Troop two that remained very dear friends of mine to this day, Commander Ryan Hall and Zach Armstrong, who's stepped off, and they caught win through an interesting intersection with those guys of what my circumstance was, and they basically, without necessarily saying it, knowing it, they challenged me to get off my ass and stop being a pussy and stop being a victim, and get my shit together and

get fit again. And I couldn't use the word inspired, but it was driven by those guys to get better, and part of that was physically get physically fit again and get off that off those meds. Different times here and there, I found I realized that those things are freaking powerful. And also was in that camp of it's a lame version of the John Wayne thing. Why take some oxy cato oxycodone without some Jack Daniels, right, So Jack and O and so it was a bad deal truthfully.

So it was a couple three years in there where I was in black bad spot, but I pulled out the friend JT and others, and also pulled out with the friends Commander Ryan Hall and Zach Armstrong got back into riding my bike. First time I got on a bike. I'd ridden bikes, race bikes for parts of my life. I rode for two miles and was exhausted. It was so like crap. You got to be kidney, but then stuck with it because these guys got my shit together,

got off. Those had a couple more bouts, but I've been able to step off without going to any other clinics or anything like that. So that's how.

flu F four phantoms. In fact, i'm burying him later this week up in Montana. Your father just died, died about a year and a half ago, and I have his remains. His wishes were free for me as a young new pilot to fly his ashes over the Grand Titan National Park. So I'm doing that on Thursday afternoon, and so yeah, I'm excited to do that and get that to honor his wishes. But so son of fighter

pilot Scotland, Germany, Germany, Scotland. And then I think it was about ten or so, moved to southern New Mexico. Lived in southern New Mexico for a while Holloman Air Force Base, and then we moved to Virginia Langley Air Force Bace. And then my dad retired and we ended up moving around. But I've been it was in Colorado since seventy nine. Moved to Colorado, missourim.

It was a little bit warm, but yeah, good to go. Okay, siblings, I have an older sister. This is a big thing for you, isn't it the family thing?

It's all a tactical air command base, all the squadrons overseas, and so I have no idea it took me, but went skiing up near Ridoso in southern New Mexico for a time as skid was air, but then really got into it in college for Collins.

Scotland and Germany. But I did love it. I loved being in that environment and I loved trying something new, and so yeah, I did enjoy it, Okay, So tell me about getting back into it seriously in college Colorado State University, Go Rams was there, and it's just what

we did Port Collins, Colorado. If you know Colorado, which I think you do, we would scheme winter Park Mary Jane for the day, but then we would go to Steamboat for the weekends because you kick a northerly route through the Kashlipooter River down into Walden and a crossing the steamboat. So I just totally dug on it, just got way into it, and freshman year on just going up with friends winter Park Marriage Jane for the day and Steamboat for the weekend. Loved it, Okay. So you

ultimately work at Steamboat. You graduate from college, what are your first jobs and how do you end up at Steamboat? Yeah? Completely by accident. I was formative elements to answer that question of critical I was a back country ranger in Recommanded National Park. My grandfather ran in the National Park Service for three presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. And I grew up in a family where he was the patriarch

or the family. Conrad Worth, you know, respected, sorry, respected, veered, remarkable man did incredible things post World War Two for our national parks. And I grew up in that environment. In fact, was reading the works of Eldo Leopold Santa Sound County Almanac, and you know, certainly John Muir. I mean I grew up in Some folks grew up in

households with football teams, religions. Mine was conservation preservation and the works of John Muir and Elder Leopold and these great people who established this culture and thinking of care for the lands. Preservation conservation mean different things. But I was aiming that direction. And UH couldn't quite pay for college, uh doing the rock the ranger thing, So they shifted gears to fighting wildland fire. On an initial attack Crew Type one crew in New Mexico, and UH loved that.

I was a sawyer on a shock crew and made a whole bunch of money doing that. I loved debt work too. Love debt work, still miss it and the crew that we was with, but couldn't see a career developing out of either of those deals. But I certainly loved the mountains. Was headed to grad school. Was actually accepted to a really nice UH university up in northern California to study what I was going to get my MBA. Yep, I had shifted and took a whole bunch of business classes.

Took the LSATZ, figured I was I know you were an attorney. I thought about becoming an attorney, went nah, ended up getting my I was headed to get my MBA applied to him. Was shocked to get accepted to a very high end program. I freaking hate name dropping, so I'm not going to say it, but it was a really nice school in northern California. But then all of a sudden, somebody told me I needed to my counselor said, hey, by the way, you need to do

an internship to complete your undergraduate degree. And they're going to need. You're going to have to have that be where you start school at getting your MBA. It's like, oh crap. At that time, I was on the crew team rowing for this school. I had gone over to Europe into a year in Scotland University of Edinburgh study history and economics. There, worked for my uncle on weekends up in the Highlands. Came back was now extended a

little bit because some of the credits and transfer. Long story short is was head of that direction.

In this case, I was the only person in this entire company at Steamboat who knew how to run these new things called spreadsheets. It was lotus one point one two X and I became as an intern because I was there willing to do anything. It was an unpaid internship, so I worked internship from eight thirty am to five. I was racing road bikes two so I'd train and then try and sleep for a few hours, and then I'd work at midnight as a night time monitor at a hotel in Steamboat to try and make some money

because internship didn't pay. But it was like hell bent to get it done. A couple months and so go in.

But in that period of time was able to become welcomed, I guess you could say by the CFO, the VP of marketing, the president of the company, and through that work with Excel, I ended up by the end of the internship they said, hey, why don't you stay here and work force for a couple of years, then go get your MBA, into which case I'll never forget, thinking, well, this is cool, I get to go right now at least combine my love of living in the mountains, skiing,

and some kind of viable work in making money doing something other than hengel rescue or fighting wild land fire. And it was completely by accident, Bob, that I ended up in the ski business. And that's how.

And I don't know, I'm probably skied twenty five thirty five times a year, but I was definitely working hard. And so I quickly ended up with a family and a couple of step kids, and ended up with a place north of Steamboat, a little horse ranch north of steamboat about eighteen miles. So I ended up working two sometimes three jobs just to pull things together. So I didn't ski much because of that.

Wonderful gentleman, great guy, deep roots in the Steamboat community. He was on the board at Pepsi for instance, PepsiCo and others. Just brilliant guy of a lot of roots in Steamboat. And then Kamara Japanese group out of support about it, and I'll stop there. I think I've answered your question.

work with American Ski Company. It was like, man, this is pretty cool town nothing in my life had I seen like it was like a TV movie set, like town Square. And all ended up not going there but American Skiing Company and we ended up, long story short, ended up selling it to a group called Fortress Investment Group, large pe firm they might have nowadays probably two three hundred million billion under management. In that case, guy named Wes Edens was one of the four founders of Fortress.

He was a skier. He went to Montana State undergraduate ski racer, then he went to Harvard, got his MBA, then off to the races. But he was held bent for owning Steamboat. He also contemporaneously was working on a transaction with Buying Interest, which was a Canadian owned company sold on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the TSX. So he bought Fortress, bought Interest the same rough time bought Steamboat.

I was a big part of that transaction and was there for a little bit, and then it got pulled up to Vancouver to work with the parent up there, the parent company up in Vancouver, Canada. And had a just great time up there because its forty eight or an hour forty eight minutes away from Whistler. Skied got up there as much as I possibly could, and went back and forth between Steamboat and Vancouver, and I stepped

off Steamboat. Stepped out of Steamboat in twenty ten as part of an eu nique circumstance with Squaw Valley to acquire Squad Valley.

more like a pe guy for a moment. I have as much passion for mountains as skiing as anybody, But at the same time I had a role and got to know the business pretty well at that time, the widow of Alex Cushing kind of the kind of the founder. One could argue that Polsons founded it. I think they'd be right in that assertion, but Nancy Cushing was only willing to sell that time forty two percent of the company, which was a no go. But in the meantime I learned a lot about it and it was WHOA, this

is a incredible mountain. Incredible mountain. A year later got a call out of a clear blue sky from a CEO that I knew from American Skiing Company. Instreingly enough, and some family litigation had been settled and Nancy Kushing no longer had controlling interest of the company. Part of the settlement was that she was now a minority shareholder and I was asked to come out and be CEO of Squad Valley at that time, and this is not necessarily a scoop, but first time really discussed this publicly.

Some of the family members had us, what's it take to get you here? And I said, really, this is a place where careers go to die. And I love the mountain and I love the area. Such incredible mountain, but from a career perspective. I'm on a pretty good track. I know the asset really well. I know what could happen here. Boy, I am going to do this, And they said, what's it taken said, well, honestly, this place needs new ownership more than anything else. And they said,

can you help us with that? I said, yeah, past ten years, I've been working in the strategic side of things, or George Bush would say the strategicy side of things. So in this case, I said, yeah, if you guys want me to line up a transaction with this place, I guarantee you I can line it up. So before taking the role and just on a handshake, I lined up transaction A perspective buyer turns out was a group called the KSL Capital Partners based out of Cherry Creek, Colorado.

They were number two behind Fortress and acquiring Steamboat, so I knew them pretty well. A couple former Veil guys were running the show. Three Veil guys were Veiled associates guys running the show down there, and knew them pretty well. And I started August two, and I think it was by September tenth, I had an exclusive letter of intent in hand from KSL interested in acquiring Squad Valley. Ended up a very sophisticated financial a group on one side

and something not that on the other side. With Squad Valley. I was brand new. I didn't know much frankly, but was able to push that transaction through where we closed on the transaction I think October fifteenth, October twentieth, so in about thirty forty five days, closed on the transaction, which is lightning speed in almost any case, and the one hundred and seventy three million bucks on that transaction, and celebrated for about fifteen minutes, went for a few turns,

then immediately turned my attention to Alpine Meadows. Turned on my heels, started reaching out to the PE Group small PE group out of California called JMA JMA based out of San Francisco to inquire about buying Alpine Meadows, and so was able to line up a transaction to acquire Alpine Meadows about a year and changed later November fifteenth

see eleven. Yeah, twenty eleven, arranged that transaction for that transaction, I think we closed on December two, and now we have Squad Valley Alpine Meadows, and in that meantime, in the meantime, part of the investment thesis and the analytics and the transaction is to the why included. Yeah, connecting these two mountains is something that would be desirable. We were definitely not and yours truly was definitely not the

first person to consider that. Right, There'd been lots and lots and lots of stuff that had happened prior a lot because mister Cushing and some of the ire he had raised with folks have pretty substantial hold sway in northern California, including Hewlett's anyway, So yeah, that's uh, there's a little bit more to it, but that's the most the samets, right.

by which can connect the two resorts. It turns out that how Troy ended up getting the land is a fascinating story associated with the I can't remember the name of the railway companies used to own most of the land in the West, particularly this area. He ended up buying it from the CEO of this railway train company. I can't remember how much he paid for it, but it was a below market deal and it was a pretty key piece of land. But he was clearly, and

I say this very respectfully, not interested in selling. Wasn't interested in being part of the transaction. Like he said, He'd put up on his own accord a couple of lift towers and had intent to make a go of it himself. And how could you not freaking respect that guys got some key land that he has, he acquired,

he put his heart and soul into it. He became a good friend and so we But we had also initiated, well, there's not going to be a transaction here for us to acquire this land, which it looked like for us to establish long term lease. And we started on that in earnest summer of eleven I think was our fall of eleven, and it took a little while to design it, but it came to pass. I guess December this last winter, right, yeah, December,

this last winter. I go into that in great detail, more detail if you'd like.

we would do it. It was clearly not how anything good was going to happen anyway, So useful on forefronts in this case, by those conversations where Troy, you know, we're not going to be around forever. We all die, taxes and death right, and what do you want to have happened to that through this land, like we're just you know, you want to put in a foundation trust. I'm here to help you, right, And you got to keep in mind that my background and my upbringing now

is playing a role. And I there was turns out there was an original essays in Danger Species ACTIUDY that indicated that there was a potential impact of soon to be listed frog and the habitat was a part of this land, and I'd say, well, we're going to design around it. My grandfather would reach out of the grave and strangle me like a horror movie if I did anything to impact any endangered species listed or not. And we did that, and that was the tone and nature

of those conversations. And with Troy and him, you know, the answer question is, I don't know. I don't think so. If Troy kept his same demeanor, he's established a trust or something for that land to advance through. But I don't know. Actually, as to this day, I can tell you in twenty seventeen, the answer would have been, no, it's not at all inevitable based on what Troy's disposition was.

as Wes Edens on the board of trustees. And he walks up to Eric and me and I know him quite well and Eric does him pretty well, and he says, I'm getting long in the tooth on interest. I think it might actually be putting putting a book out on that and selling it. Are you guys interested in it? To say it cut off, cut off offt guard would

be an understatement. Hit pause six months earlier Mammoth Barry Sternlock, the guy had forty two percent of Mammoth and their other holdings, had put a book out on a book meaning a confidential information memorandum or kind of book out on Mammoth, but had wanted a really high multiple, very high number for that asset. Great Mountain, incredible Mountain, incredible holdings. What they built was incredible there, but just not worth that.

So we passed. And then when west Edents walked away, Eric and I spent the next two hours talking about, okay, well,

hold on interest in this current form. Was it no longer had Whistler's part of the asset base, but had a lot of great skirias And quickly went into the easy side of this critical word easy part of this, and that is, if you take all these great ski areas including Steamboat winter Park and others with interest, and do you have Mammoth and these other resorts, and do you have squad Valley as this point, squad Valley Ski

Holdings the parent of squad Valley out by Meadows. Maybe there's a different perspective and now there's potentially a critical mass. If you can make this all makes sense enough, critical mass to actually be competitive with Vail Resorts, a very

successful company based out of Broomfield, Colorado. And so that's I ended up playing a role in the role up strategy, pulling that together, some of the negotiations, some of the trips to all the assets, the presentations, the warming presentations that take place in that classic situation, and yes, skiing these mountains, which I had a great day at skiing everywhere, these places, including my hometown resort, Steamboat right which, by the way, ironically I was in Steamboat in the same

very room that we had given so many management presentations to prospective owners, but now it was being presented Steamboat and all the other assets were being presented to me. I thought that was ironic. Ended up playing role and putting that together. And at that stage, Bob, I just was at a point in my career. You know a lot of stuff had gone on in Squad Valley, Alpine Meadows.

I you know, by now had a few years under my belt with the ARM and I just had a different perspective on life and hit hit the punch out button, flew to ever and told those guys, said, hey, we want you to come run this company. We're building. I said, you know, I love I love these guys at KSL Capital. They're so good, they're so solid. But I'm just not it's not in the cards. It's not in the cards

for me. I Yeah, So I punched out. And I also had recently been married to a wonderful lady who runs a company down here in southern part of Orange County. And I just I just had kind of worked hard, really hard like many people, like most people do, and it was time to find a different path. And so I punched out at that time.

traction in the nineties. Certainly by the twenty first century, those lists were so expensive that they raised tickets, and therefore conventional wisdom is that it out a lot of people who didn't want to spend that money. It was seen as more of the wealthy person's sport. Then, of course, Veil Associates is purchased by Apollo. Rob Katz comes in and runs it after he wants to leave New York City in two thousand and one and before the decade is out. He comes up with this concept of the

epic pass. So instead of a season's pass at Veil Only or Veil and Beaver Creek costing between two and three thousand dollars for at the initial price in the two thousand and eight, it was far under one thousand dollars. So there are a lot of things going on. The plan with American Ski Company with less odd and the plan with Interest was a real estate play, whereas Veil flipped the script. They said, no, we're going to make the money on the lift tickets, the ancillary, the skiing.

What's on the hill? Of course, most people don't know. In most of the town's where Vail is, they own a lot of the branded shops see the Patagonia shops, see Solomon and they are evolved, involved a little in real estate. It's inevitable, but that is not their main focus. Now Epic comes along, cleans up and without going through the transition going to the ultimate point you make, we end up getting the Icon Pass, such as we have

two major players. Icon Pass is a little bit more expensive than the Epic Pass, but not dramatically a couple hundred dollars. It's irrelevant if those are the skiers you're going to go to what do we know skier days And for those who don't know, that's when one person goes to a hill one day, that's a skier day. So if a person skis sixty days a year. It's sixty days. So we're not talking about the quantity of skiers, but the number of times people go on the hill.

It's stable and went up, whereas before it had been you know, it had gone down, it matured, et cetera. However, there it's an interesting thing because there's backlash. You and me both know there's always backlash with any change. If you want to change we slow lift, fixed grip lift to a high speed lift in a bowl area, you always have the traditionally saying don't do that. They want to add a new lift in Jackson right now, same thing is happening. But the reason I mention all this

to give a little bit of history. Take a snapshot of the industry. Now, okay, what is it mature? Can we have more excuse? I also wanted to talk one step further about the experience. Certainly on the Epic Pass, there are very few restrictions. There are a few more on the Icon Pass. This has resulted in a lot of publicity about crowding. A lot of it is not true. They'll show a picture a powdered day, people lining up where the lift opens. They'll show people when not that

much of the ski area is open. It is nowhere near as crowded as the publicity, but this is seen as a factor. In addition, because of the law on the economics, you essentially can't build a new ski area. So what's gonna happen? Where are we and where we going?

Adam was running bail. Adam and I would contend, I know this to be true, would contend I would contend that his background of the United and the airline business was a little bit more commodity based pricing, where you lose share if you don't match on price. It is a simplistic way to put it, commodity being something that's

only different siated by price. He ends up on Friday afternoon of Gary Defranz announcing this by Saturday afternoon during the Sneograb sale, which is a labor day sale in Denver, matching, and next thing, you know, the cheap passes born. I can't remember how many years later, maybe five, five, six, seven years later, after Adam Aaron leaves and shortly thereafter robcast leaves the board as a representative of the group you mentioned. I think they had large component of bail

associations at that time. This is post bankruptcy Right Veils bankrupt in ninety two ninety three under Jillette because cross collateralization, all that jazz. But interestingly enough, the KSL guys picked it up, fixed it up, and took it public. But now it's Rob Cats coming in and he takes something that was the cheap pass. Thing happened completely by accident. It was a knee jerk like you read about. I'm

not kidding you. It's kind of the I know this to be true because I was there so expand upon that time happens. Well, it was Garied French needed to make payroll for winter Park running. Oh you mean the original, Yeah, the original.

of that space. By the way, there's a pretty good analog with the music industry. In addition to these things that happened, there's also the maturation exactly just like in the music business, right when BGP gets acquired by I can't remember what group.

You worked for them, with them and helped lead them in this case, but you saw that first and in this case I saw firsthand the maturation of those working inside the key business. So it was a little bit more than you mentioned. But the point being is relative to real estate and what drives businesses, it's the going concerned principle they teach you in first year business school. Is really simple. You can't build the business on a long term basis just on real estate. It will fail

because you're number one, run out of real estate. Number two. The evolution or the undulations associated with that. And there were those of us who is an old friend of mine, a boss of mine who went to Middlebury's also Christyman, said stick to our knitting. We're going to do this. We can do this other real estate element. But the real estate, for instance in Steamboat was meant to be was a means to an end and see what we had done tons of studies and research understand that we

knew there's two three key factors to our success. Number one airline seats got to have these NonStop heats and from lax Smo, Dallas, Fort Worth all accounts of the other one is the proper running of the ski area, pricing the name. But the third one is available nightly rental pillows and we had a dearth of those. So we ended up getting into call it real estate only because it was a means to an end, not because

it was a long term effort. There there were companies like Interest who were built largely upon that and they weren't successful in the long run. You mentioned another one American Skiing, a skiing company, they had their grand summit size. We ended up doing the steamboat. Grand was over hotel and conference center. Who doggie, you're stumbling back into some memories here, man, and you know your stuff. Not surprisingly, but there was a darkness and steamboat when less was there.

There's bumper stickers and you name it.

tell you from the inside out, straight up, straightforward. There's an experienced CFO who ended up cross collateralizing assets and put the company in a very very very difficult position when it came to structuring acquisition or securing companies ski areas and land with capital that was secured through cross collateralized loans, which can feel good for a couple three days, but as you know from your business experience, we'll catch up to your ass and those Our ass was caught

up and it was covenants blown through and it was bad. It was really bad. So it was actually a number of factors. But I would I could make a very very strong salient. I sometimes I'm asked to speak, can do guest lecturing at business schools. It's really fun. I enjoy the heck out of that. But in this case, you can look at these three, four or five layers a little bit like my skyde accidents. Usually there's this

one prevailing thing. In this case, one prevailing thing is I had an inexperienced CFO who and uh willingly or knowingly or unknowingly and unwillingly uh less signed off on this. But it was cross colateralized loans debt that brought that company to its heels, to its excuse me, Okay.

like you say the ski industry. But inside there, your view of this is very unique and informed. There's pockets of those who succeed and pockets of those who do okay and those who don't. And it has to do with their business acumen, their business model. They're thinking, you know, there's so many things to it. Ski industry is the same way highlight that they're those who have the shit together and those who don't, and those who rely on phrases like if you have snow it, you do well,

if you don't, you don't. That's that's a false premise, entirely false premise. Or if we spend a whole bunch of money on share lips big metals. Spending money on big metals easy. The hard part is having it makes sense from a finite capital outlay perspective. My answer to your question is the industry has shed the intensity of focus on real estate being such a key part of seeing to the p and l their profitability. Thankfully, those

who figured that out didn't take long. There's a lot of roadkill on that one in the past twenty years. And those who stuck to the netting, they are doing things, good things, whether they be Wachusetts Mountain, I think in Massachusetts, right, yeah, all the way up to the big guys. There's some smart people that still have passion for the sport that are good business people running these mountains.

beginner lifts. Really the infrastructures improved this year at Steamboat mazing upgrades in infrastructure. So what we know is the business model is to get the capital in the spring, so you're not weather reliant. Okay. People want people to buy the pass, which breaks even usually between five and six visits. You have that money. Whether they go or not, you're at least set. So is that base of pass buyers And of course Epic two years ago actually lower the price, right, Okay?

you have these resort areas. What is the ceiling? Knowing that we I mean, it appears we can't build any more infrastructure in terms of new mountains, what's going to happen here?

question and all of the iterations. I get it. That could be said that that's one of the reasons I wanted to step off, and I'd be a hypocrite to not point out my contradiction there. The contradiction self evident. The very thing that I helped build is a very thing you're talking about, right, But at the same time I realized it wasn't. I had built a good career,

I had done well. I was pleased and proud of some of the things I'd done look back and wish but this case, I was like, Okay, I'm not too sure I want to be a part of this particular circumstances going forward. And that was great. That was a personal But the answer question from a strategicy perspective, is

the last time I use that reference. Is it the goal to set up a competitor for Vail we felt was a good one, and the onw O Resorts by Altara Mountain Company, and then there's the on O Resorts, and then there's affiliates, right, which are part of it. I think it's like forty eight or something now something like that. We built those with Mountain Collective Partners and more.

Is extremely competitive and it's a competitive environment. And by the way, the research we did with McKenzie and others, we came out of the gates price higher than the Epic Pass very much on purpose, very much on purpose. And I'm thrilled to see the Foliot on purpose based on the numbers, based on the numbers, based on the views, and you know, the fundamental premises with Alterra and the icon it was, I would think it remains this is not a commodity product. We don't compete based on price.

We compete based on price and many other things in some cases are precursors and other cases or epilogues to that whole discussion and the consumer's mind. And it's not complex, but it's nuanced. I could tell you this caliber since we're here in California. California is the battleground because you have in the market for the market high volume high visitation with Squad Valley, Alpine Meadows and Mammoth in the al Terra resorts. They also have vail resorts with north Star,

Heavenly and the like. But California was it, and it's also a market that travels to Ski, to Utah, to Wyoming, to Montana, Colorado of course, so it is a big deal and it was the battleground as part of the roll ups. The initial quantitative analytics we did on this stand ups pointing is I don't know exactly where it goes. I do know this that scheme has become a little

bit more affordable, and that's the good news. The other news is it's become more affordable and that's brought a lot more people to the sport and trying to find that equilibrium, that balance, I mean, it's it's with a great deal of pain and oh type kind of like geez seeing the lines on those high demand days. The compaction that we talk about, you know, to our lines at this resort and this resort, everybody gets them. And it doesn't matter how many gondolas high speed h you

put out of a base. When you have twelve thousand people that want to go skiing in between nine am

and nine thirty am. There's not a lift system on the planet that can move them out because squad we had, even with the base base which is at fourteen hundred hours, so twenty fourth there's I think out of base lift capacity might be six thousand something like that skiers per hour, and then you put nine thousand people that want to get up, mostly on KT understandably because fricking soul center of skiing universe right there, the incredible hill can't be done,

so that compaction issue has been augmented by passes. I don't know where it goes from here. I don't have a crystal ball on that, but I do understand that I can say the obvious restate blinding clash the obvious it has become more affordable good news. The other news is it's become more affordable and it's invited more people to the sport. I'm not trying to avoid your question.

you know you would be. We're best friends with the warranty department and I can talk from experience. Whereas the skis, the skis would just fall apart, never mind the residents, et cetera. Secondly, because of airline prices for baggage, there's a whole new paradigm which always existed. There was always a rental business. Then we went into the high end rental business and now there are plenty of people who

travel without skis. There's a big issue of well, how many skis can be sold in the market, and we look at these individual companies. K two starts out as a private company in Vashon Island, Washington. The two Kirchen brothers owner for a long time. Then it goes to a couple of owners and nobody wanted it. Okay, it was successful. We have Rosignol sold to Quicksilver, a disaster repurchased by the original company. We have Solomon been through

a few changes, goes to a mayor. We have a lot of companies that go out of business, Knisol, etc. On and on. Then we have the Nordica Group who builds a factory. Everyone says this is the stupidest thing of all time. And now Blizard is a dominant ski brand. Having said all of that, and you were talking about the value of Squad Valley, which is a large physical asset, there's not that many zeros. There's not that much money

in the scheme. So if you go back decades, never mind opening your own ski area, you'd open your own drug store. That's all changed now. Okay. Even medical groups if you can find a doctor. Certainly in Los Angeles there are doctors, not parts of group. They don't take insurance. They might file. That's it. It's a very thin layer of the business. In addition, as I say, the skis last longer because of the quiver paradigm. Active skiers have more than one pair of skis. Yep, Okay, there may

be a paer they don't use. We have the whole back entry thing. Terms of powder skis. If you have a pair ten years is good enough, even if the technology changes a little bit. So why go into the physical goods business?

but in terms of my results not good. And then you realize, okay, you know, people don't understand it any elite level of physical competition. It's sports. There are psychological elements in experium and this guy, Scott Brooks bake. I would ski with him every day. He would be just as good, if not better, in competition. The average person chokes, and an educated person would realize there's only a limited amount of money in this sport. Then a friend of ours,

Dirk Douglas, got hurt on an inverted. They took the inverteds out of freestyle and it crashed the business. Now, ultimately Moguls were in the Olympics in renaissance. But that's a long answer to your brief question.

but have a lot of respect. The other thing, by the way, terms of I don't know what your injuries were, but in the seventies and the early eighties, no, but you guys were doing some crazy stuff in the air and landing on hard pack. And now we put groups of choppers on the hill below the bumps, the airs on the bump courses, and certainly the aerials and stuff. You guys didn't have that, So I.

than in the United States. However, we've gotten to a point, and this is just my own personal beef, that once you start making the moguls, it's become so profetd it's not the same way such that other than moguls, the best giers and you're working with buddy, the best skiers are the racers. Just to go one step further front of mine to instructor and Aspen, and there was a video of someone analyzing the technique of Marcel Herscher who

was literally breaking every rule. Yeh okay, So there's different schools of thought. When I lived in Utah, the worst thing you could be, and you would laugh. You didn't want to be an instructor. We laughed at those people. By the same token, in most ski areas, the racers are off in their own hill, their own paradigm. No one even cares about those people. Then we had big

mountain skiing. You know, we have the different album, but the average person is skiing in bounds, and an incredible percentage of people if it's a storm, won't even go out right.

know body? But it relates to this. So when I retired body, and I let me answer straight up, it makes no sense to be in the hard good side of the business when I came back from a Middle East Well, let me back up step. So I think I purchased probably five hundred to million pairs of skis in my career for different ski areas, and knowing a fair amount about the business, models would probably consistently think to myself, why would you ever want to be in

that business? Because all the things you mentioned about ski resorts and the hard good side of the ski skis is right. In fact, we looked at a book on K two Mark or Vocal gosh, the thing was sixteen or something like that, rubber Maid and can't remember the different groups, but it'd be fair to say that the ski resorts side of business, even if you have somewhat of a clue, you're you're okay. Regardless of the market

dynamics we've talked about, you're okay. You're probably doing twenty twenty five percent EBITDA margin on bad years and thirty thirty five percent EBITDA margin on decent years. And there are those who exceed that on an ongoing basis, and that's ebitdah right net operating cash call. It's not exactly that.

Bullet's call it that for the time being, hard you goes side of the business different tale out of any ten years of any ski company you mentioned, it's not even a capital intensive business either, but because of the retail distribution model and more, and it's largely driven by Europeans save K two and their intensity of focus on racing.

Be fair to say that any ten year period, you can take a snapshot and say two of those years they might pull down five to seven percent margin three or four of those ten years on I'm talking trailing ten years. Of any ten years, they're barely breaking even in those other two to three years. Remnant on this math is they're getting crushed like a bug on a

windshield and knowing that, why would you want to do that? Right, Passion drives a lot of people, and in some cases I compared to some of the great folks I knew that used to run airlines Delta Continental and like there's times where they would not be doing well.

At this time, I was on the USK team board of directors and we I was living with my wife in San Juan Capistrano, California, and he was just up the road in Coda Kotakuta, Coda Dekaza, Coda Dekaza, the neighborhood down there in Orne.

we knew each other, we were friends. I pulled I'd been asked a long time ago, fourteen or thirteen to buy Governor Sandoval of Nevada and Governor Brown at the time of California to help bring the Olympics back to like Tahoe from nineteen sixty and I called him and pulled him into some of the initial discussions on that targeting twenty twenty two. So I knew him pretty well,

and I knew him as a friend. And one of the other tales of Bodie this I think worth telling, is I was lining up to buy a whole bunch of skis for Squad Valley Alpai Metos, I know, like ten fifteen, twenty thousand pairs of skis, restock and head. He was on head at the time, but he was injured and he just basically didn't have a right foot

that he could have put any pressure on. If you remember that injury, I think was thirteen something like that port right, and so Head to try and influence me, says, hey, we're going to bring Boddy Miller and hang out with him. They're like, okay, cool, And we ended up skiing for the day, just the two of us, him on one

foot and me on both feet. I was able because of that to somewhat keep up with him, but we didn't talk about skis or skiing at all all day long because at that time he was going through a very public challenge with his daughter. And it was when, as you know, you have many very famous people on the show, with stuff like that happens, it ends up in freaking People magazine, and it's hard enough going through challenges with kids and a split family. Anyway, For those who.

Hona khoum with a hangover, drunk or whatever. This solid guy inside I could see it. We ride chair lips with people. You get to get to see that if you know how to pay attention. I did. I was impressed, bookmark that. Then we were living near each other, were hanging out. We're the two guys that are retired, that have too much time on her hands, drifting a conversation at the coffee shop doing and then and then tragically his daughter Emmy died, And I do anything to undo that.

I would take five rounds. I would do anything to undo the pain that that caused him and his wife, Morgan. It's just fucking heartbreaking, and I was amazed at how solid he was through that circumstance. I gave him a couple and gave him. I called him and said, I don't know, I don't have any words for you. I can't help you out. All I could do is be a wingman. And he called me too three days later and started off, did you know that drowning is the

number one cause of infant death? Buddy had no idea. That's how he let off, Hey, Buddy, how you doing? Did you know that? And I was so from that point forward, I can't remember how to I don't even know how to describe that error. But became better friends, Like I said, do anything to freaking undo that shitty way to become better friends. But then we ended up drifting back into conversation about you a ski team, their business ventures and alike, and a lot of stuff in

between there here and there. But then on an entirely different realm of work, line of work that I do, I was over the Middle East for about a year and change came back and I had by that time.

fix this deal up. But in the meantime I had learned a lot. I learned a bit about manufacturing of skis, which I didn't know much, and I learned about some of the stuff that was in his mind mind that he never had a chance to put in place, because and that's actually part of the ethos of our company is this is what we've done, is take all the noise, all the egos, all the stuff, all the people in between his mind and the skis, and there's nothing in between the right what is in his mind is on

the skis that you ski on hard stop. But in that process learned and then, oh gosh, I don't know, six months into it, said give me a second, and I crawled back into my rusty quantitative analytics mode cave and it ran a whole bunch of analysis, whole bunch of research, you know, kind of going back to my old days, and built some models and came out of

that said here's the deal. Let's go do this. But we're going to have change the model because neither of us want to be in the hard goods business because of what we described earlier. What you described earlier to be true is true. But the only means by which to make this work is with these three, four or five tenants. And we're classic business planning stage stages of concept, proof of concept, developed business plan. We're in proof of concept,

developing the business plan. And in this case we need to go direct consumer. Have e com only be our deal because the distribution system of ski shops and broker the broker groups, the buying groups were killing margin. And that's why you have that circumstance. Make a pair of skis for two hundred dollars a pair, right, sell them for eight hundred whatever the MSRP is or even the most available the most commonly available pricing. But then you're

selling them to those resellers. It's not somewhat self evident.

but we're contemplating something a little bit bigger scale. And so that was our the business model, which sounds easier than it sounds easier to it's easy to say it out loud than it is to actually put it in place. But because you have a tradition, you have a history in ski business, and we respect that. There was more to it than that, but that was the key thing in terms of U saying we're going to do this, We're gonna have could go DTC com. I call the

buddy of mine who ran Canyon Bikes, Great Bikes. He brought Canyon to the States in twenty sixteen and industry. That's a strong analog because bikes, bike shops and alike. But they had great success, and he was nice enought to open up his playbook and share with me. But it was basically three or four Harvard Business School case studies, full of notes, notepads, and adopted a lot of policies thinking approach the canyon. They fed straight into our business model.

And when we announced Peak Ski Company April sixth, I think it was last year.

that a factor? It's almost like well now I'm starting over, but it's like the third time.

But I knew on the inside. He knew on the inside what had and had not happened at all ski companies, including those two that you mentioned, and that was fundamentally his ability to take what is you have to understand.

I know he's been on your show. I equated him because I grew up in the Air Force to the right stuff, General Chuck Yeager, you would go to the skunk works is when that was first developed, and hang out with the flight engineers all day long, months and months, and then you get a cup of coffee, jump in a flight suit and go fly the damn thing. Come back feed input to the engineers, saying it mock point nine. And I know this because he's a friend of my father's.

He was an experimental pilot too at some point, and held General Dieger in great esteem. He was unlike anybody else because he could make how the X one happened. He didn't just fly the damn thing. He played a role in its development. I realized a bodie's like that. I also really realized that his mind is very different

than many think. He's got a creativity. There's times I've been on hundreds of hours of calls with him, Bob, with engineers, some of the best engineers at Design Skis, and it's just times I'll hang up and go, when did you get your Masters in engineering from MIT? He's got this brilliant mind. What's that great movie with Robin Williams about the guy running calculus? He's a janitor. He's doing calculus on the chalkboard in between wiping floors. Oh God,

was that movie. I can't remember the name of that one right now. It escapes me. But he's got this mental level brilliance, creative brilliance.

but you can't make any money. They are coming Garth Select will be stocking their skis at a very high race point two thousand. What do you think of that.

not take on as part of our business model. It is a very European centric approach and that's understandable, as you well know, alpine ski racing doesn't have nearly the traction in the US that it does in Europe. We're just I'm going over to sold in here in three weeks, we're going to the first World Cup race. Yeah, and we're going to launch Peak over the EU and as part of the lead up to that EU UK we call it and not we, but it's called And in

this case everybody have interacted. Well, you guys know that Marcel is doing stuff right, yeah, and God bless them. This comes back to your point earlier. You mentioned that there's about nine hundred thousand, two million pairs of skis every year in the US. Sold in Europe, it's two point two millions total available market, total accessible market, and

we're taking on very very small components of that. Thoughtfully, we think in terms of what we're trying to take on, where we're seeking to accomplish with our small but high impact company, we think, and in this case a lot of respect from oursel he's got great skis. The price point, the distribution system, the manner, you know, the simple aspect is what's going to be your price point? Establish it

how's it going to appeal to what consumer? Price is as much part of brand as anything, both by pushing people away from your product, but also in some cases attracting them. Right, folks want to have the most expensive ski with gold leaf on the top sheet and all that stuff. That's not my deal, it's not bodies deal. It's not worry about. And so we have a different offering a different value and expressing the quality of the

skis and skiing experience. So we have a lot of respect from ourselves what he's got going on for such family, great operation. We're direct to consumer eCOM and.

your Ride Yep. The reason I mentioned Wagner is if you buy a pair of Wagner skis which are one hundred percent custom I mean gore such will sell you and off the rack Wagner etc. But generally speaking, you call, you talk to them. However, they ask you for your boots sole length, right, and they mount the binding. There's this point of friction. Okay, So you are selling a product that is direct to consumer, but inherently the person has to take it to retail to get the skis mounted.

You sell bindings, whether they buy bindings there or whatever. When they get the ski, it is not sciable.

different states, different countries, Colorado, Utah, California, British Columbia. And the amount of time, effort, money we put into defense against PI attorneys, they circle they have a role. I don't deny that. Also, in some cases it'd be.

You can't disclaim gross negligence, and of course PI attorneys feed off of that, and so we've chosen to not engage in mounting.

So yeah, we consciously choose this path for those reasons, and more so Bob, it's critical, and I can't tell you how sincere I am. You come up These phrases maybe seen as cliches. Most of the time, we co opt them. In this case, this is mine for my life, my career, my experiences. I've never met a horse, a mountain, a dog, or a pair of skis I don't like. And that's more than just respect. I'm not Body Miller, I'm not you. I know how to ski, and I can ski kind of almost anywhere. How well I do

it is probably up for grabs. But I say that respectfully. I've been on the people that run these companies, the people that have built skis, love them all. They're my friends. Everything we're doing is respectful but taken in the past. But we have a different approach. We have a different take on things. The why Body and Andy came out of retirement to do this is really predicated upon this other statement as phrase of the least important thing about

our company or the skis. But they're critical, a very purposeful my trying to channel Yogi Berra. The skis are quite good, quite prideful in what we've developed. The business around it is, as I've mentioned, includes taking the noise and the people and the pride and the egos out of in between Bodie's mind and the skis. But there's other things where we have going on with Peak Ski Company, including these strategic initiatives, technology integration. We announced Peak Locate.

pairs of skis. Say it was just the US. It's not exactly trying to take on the taxi industry like Uber did, Right, You know do quick math, and it's less than one percent of total available market, So one could say, wow, set in the bar pretty low, and that'd be a fair statement. So we know we can compete. How fast we grow is going to be a very thoughtful, conscious effort, guided by a whole bunch of research, response

and response from the customer. But it's unlikely that with wild success that we grow that number beyond twenty thousand and three years. And that's because that's not our intent.

Our intent really relates to the strategic initiatives. So we'll continue to develop and make very good skis, and we fold in some of the other elements of the strategic innovation that we're doing, including locating devices, including advanced materials development with Thermoplastics and alike with a group out of Idaho, and even the entirely re engineering the manufacturing pers some skis. I'm not trying to pivot out of your question, but the reason why the intent Boddy and I came out

of retirement take this on. We've had covered the directed consumer model, we've covered the margin, and we're not in where we're conscious, we're aware we're not Gordon Gecko. At the same time, We did not enter into this business with nonprofit in mind. We have we're profit oriented and we're doing well. With that said, the primary motivation is too is a means to an end to fund and get these strategic initiatives going, because that's where we get

true motivation. That's where I passionalized. And the answer your question is again not trying to avoid it. But I guess we're a niche. I don't know. I don't want to try.

particular thing. But since it is a word of mouth business and companies go hot and cold, if you got traction, one would think that you'd want to sell seventy thousand pairs of skis.

that's a boutique skis. Sure, Like in Colorado you'll see Wagner skis, which you know on a regular basis, so you know they're expensive. This is not a mainstream thing. Last year you saw peak skis were I skied not that many. But let me just shift gears here a little bit. Okay, I skied on one brand of skis for the better part of ten years. I got many peers of this brand. They used to as you know, the cycles used to be brief for every three years.

The really change of skis. Other than the paint. Now some people are going to four years, etc. But the last two iterations have been somewhat less satisfying. So I decided to go to the shop, the elite shop, and say, you know, I'll ski everything you got, okay.

hold on the herds no, right, you know? And you know why right, Well they made them for a year without metal, which was a joke. And now if they have the exact opposite of K two where the rocket frame, where they have less in the front. But I'm interested in your theory why they don't hold.

even fewer people. The Enforcer series great skis.

really stand on them, right. You hear that constantly for the thirty years over thirty years or it's a really gumby soft powder ski, right, why and so get that on hard pack good luck, because it's a it's a noodle right torsally not very rigid. Everybody has different purposes. You're used to be an East Coast guy a long time ago, but now you're kind of Sierra's guy, right, so you're probably gonna wider underfoot ski.

sixty three Fender basement amp to go with it. It's like three quarters or at least a quarter of the great songs have been written on the Fender nineteen fifty nine Gibson Less Paul custom plugged into a Fenders right basement amp. I want that sound right, Maybe you or like that. I want that out of performance of a ski and still plenty of room for people want to play strats or telecasters or less Paul's or you name it.

It's the way I see it, and a bit of a reach on an analog, but I hope you appreciate the point of the effort there. Point being is back to the skis. It's not magic, but the key hole allows the best of both worlds. It's a little bit of a bipolar situation, and you'll appreciate this. It's obviously a podcast so Kim visually, but the front third of the ski, from the tip to the unlike other skis, they have the same trait orcharacteristic from tip to tail.

It's soft and forgiving on the front third, and so turn initiation is shockingly there and easy. And I remember the first time being on the prototypes December two, two years ago and I noticed it. I'm not as good as ski as you were, body, but I can ski in a holy crap. I mean this the first time on these skis, the turn initiation, this case eighty eighths

of the first boards out. I couldn't believe. It's like, this makes no sense, and I was waiting for it to be gumby once I loaded it up, got into a turn, but because soft on the front turn initiation. But then all of this is not by accident. This is stuff that does not happen by accident. Once you start loading up the ski, all of the weight pressure of the physics pull pull everything to the midwaist of

the ski, and now it's torsionally rigid underfoot. And that's why you have this Unlike other ski designs, the turn initiations there, whether it be the eighty eighths or the one tens, but then it's Stiffen's up on her foot once you loaded up, and it's tortially rigid underfoot, and that's why it holds me.

bring it. In the ski industry, the people who were in the traditional retail business, they are down on peak for a number of reasons. Bodies jumping from company to company, and two they don't sell them and they want to do retail. Then there are some elite places they want to sell things that are not footballed. But let's not get into that, okay. So the reason I brought up the demo of the skis, I could have gotten anything at below wholesale, and I said, okay, I'm skiing so much,

let me go demo and whatever. And I ended up buying what I never would have bought, Okay, which those K twos. I bought a couple of pairs, the ninety nine. The one aweight is an unbelievable ski that's better than the ninety nine. But whatever, My point being, this is a business of people who are buying traditional, top of the line skis. I'm not talking about custom skis. I'm not talking about two thousand dollars skis. Skis at usually

MSRPs like seven ninety nine. An incredible percentage of those people want to ski on that ski before they buy it, sure now more than ever. But I can't ski on the peak. So what do you have to say that as peak? I mean I basically have to blindly buy it.

What do people do at the bike shop. They get on that bike and they ride around the parking lot, turn it and say, oh, buy it or not. But up into that point, it's been shaped and formed by what the Tour de France guys are on, what everybody else is saying. They are local bike club guys, you name strap, all kinds of stuff. Much the same as if you were to demo a pair of peaks, you would trade your driver's license at at ten by ten

ten and get ninety minutes on that ski. Now, a guy like you could probably probably have a good chance of, no matter what the conditions are in that ninety minutes, figure out that ski pretty quickly.

cases they weren't too sure how to articulate. Interestingly, I found that folks can know they like or don't like a ski, but it's also tough for them to articulate. Why so that bike shop thing? But right right right, going to a bike into store, what's the first thing that happens to go to a ski shop? Tac too? A guy, you have some perspective shaped by the outside magazine gear guy that just came out, and what do they do? They grab pair of skis and they bend them. Right,

guy like you knows how what he's feeling. Guy like body knows. Of the fifteen million skiers in this country, about fourteen point nine million have no idea what they're feeling when they bend those skis.

If you don't like us. It's that simple. It's a pretty It's kind of Nordstroms has that deal from back in the nineties. Remember when Nordstroms had that classic service story of guy comes back with four pairs of tire a four sets for tires and says, I want to return them. Nor from person said sure, Well, then the course the services story is that they don't sell tires.

In this case, we're in that same mode because why because in this case it's a mitigan against the business planning process, going to call it B school type of course stuff. It's a mitigan against the resistance, the consumer resistance, because there's a history of people buying skis a certain way and doing them sort of including demo tents. The scariest say, we get that, we're we're acknowledging the past. At the same time, we have some mitigants to help

people get to and through that. And thankfully that's going. It's going pretty well.

So first year out of the gates, yeah, we Look in the absence of a you know.

a one ten. Yep, someone comes in also, although you saw a one seventy eight, you have to solo one sixty eight instead of a one to seventy, and you go up to one ninety, which a lot of people don't. Can someone call and say, hey, give me advice which one to buy?

We're a small company with twenty one people up there in Bozeman, Montana, where we're headquartered, and I end up on conversations all the time, which I love our perspective customers and a lot of business. What are you skiing on right now? What ski do you dig on? What are the skis do you not like? And that by the time we get through those questions in conversation, it's not like we're telephone what it call them TSRs from the nineties. You know, we're after the scripted kind of

flow chart of stuff. It's more just conversation with the folks and we can help figure out pretty quickly what they're looking for in terms of with underfoot and then length. One thing about the peak skis is they tend to It's not just the keyhole, but because the other elements of the geometry absence relative apps and subsidecut comparatively for the kind of turns you can pull off in these deals on these skis, but also the rise on the front.

It's not a full rocker, but it's a rise. They tend to ski about four to five centimeters shorter the most conventional skis. I think it's fair to say these are not conventional skis because the key hole and more so we take that into account. But we will get a conversation with folks because we know our skis and we'd like to know more about what they're looking for, and then we match them and we do it with human beings, not with AI, not with bots.

of boun country work. Loved it. I had a wild here one day and Strap literally duct taped some Apple layer tags onto my skis. I just want to see what would happen. Quickly found out the dark sides, the blind spots of the Apple air tag, form factor, limitations, battery life and all that kind of stuff. But then bookmarked that and said, still there's something here right in terms of being able to find your skis come fast forward. So one of the three strategic initiatives prior to our

announcement of Peak Locate was technology integration. We think there's a better way to integrate technology in a real way, not just in a whiz bang zippity due to a led light crap way right, true innovation that does stuff. We found a development partner called Pebbleby and they have a unique position in that they have a locating tracking capability that worked with both Apple iOS as well as Android platform Google Android platforms. Unique nobody else can do that.

It's also a device that's externally rechargeable. With it in the Apple world is the Apple mag Say technology. It's called technically a g charger and the battery life is three months right out of gates. There's more to it, but then we were able to work with us and customize in the form factor, make it very small, very thin. It's roughly gosh. I think it's a neighborhood of eight millimeters by eleven millimeters and about the thickness of a

credit card. And last three months worked with both platforms and so in externally rechargeable. So we announced this in March of this last year this year, excuse me. And we're working on integrating against all of our skis for twenty four to twenty five. And it's basically a tracking locating device and Simplicity does simple stuff really well. And I would argue the following I learned from the ski resort side of things. The spectrum of people that are skiers in the US A good pick on the US

you have and Epic is a good example. Epic Mix. Remember when Bail came out with Epic Mix. A lot of folks still use that, but there's initial adopters that were kind of very technically tech oriented. They have used it, continue to use it right out of the well. Those people don't know these track your vertical, your runs, et cetera. Very technology tech oriented to say the least. And then the other end of spectrum is leave my ski experience alone.

I don't want any technology. I just want to freaking ski right. And then the vast majority of American skiers are in between. And I equate it to four wheel drive. I live in the mountains, and I use my four wheel drive on when I have to, maybe fifteen to twenty percent of every day every year. But when I need it. I really need it, right. This device is

really simple, it's elegant. If you're you don't want technology invading your ski experience, great, don't use it if you If you're a techie guy, you want to know it here. You can light it up all day long, but it goes as a device that goes underneath the top sheet, so you can't see it. And for the vast majority of people that want to locate their skis in deep snow, they are at fail and there's three thousand pairs of skis outside the lodge and they can't remember where they

put them. It is a device that is a theft deterrent right because hard to defeed it without ruining the ski. It's also tracking locating device from traveling. So it's a simple, straightforward ability, a deal that works with Apple find My as well as androids.

the balance are Apple iOS. They'll a very difficult time finding somebody can make this kind of technology work with both platforms and have a device that is externally rechargeable. So those are the primary technology barriers to entry, and that's we have some exceptional IP attorneys. One guy, our primary IP attorney, worked with a little technology company in

Coup Patino called Apple for sixteen years. He knows stuff, and so we have a exclusivity in this sector globally for this device that does all everything I just mentioned.

And so relative of the materials switching gears, I also came to find out and understand that carbon fiber has been to use in many skis and is a less than desirable material. Now I did know that, but I didn't know the way I do by way of body. And that is because fundamentally, without getting too deep into my modern level of engineering and physics understanding, is how it receives energy and returns energy is very spiky. So you've been on skis that have a substantial amount of

carbon fibers. Somehow in this construction they receive energy and returns energy in a way that for a skier like you would be probably not very desirable. Chattery. You can got lots of different descriptions, but it doesn't work well, but it achieves the outcome desired the people making the ski light and stiff, but doesn't theoretically.

of what we're talking about. So in describing this to this group we're working within. Their clients include the Department of Defense, NASA, Boeing. They're working with Amazon on the Blue Origin space shuttle. The we're small ski industry is really small compared to what they're taking on, but we've been able to work our way in and we're working

with this group at the molecular level to develop. As the mag group did in Austria developed Titanle, we're working at the molecular molecular level developing our own thermoplastic that has a tracing characteristics that we desire, which is to receive and return energy in a fashion more similar to what we know to be wood rite, a more smooth distribution curve of energy return, but we still want to

get the lightness and stiffness out of the material. So we're at the early stages, incipient stages of that work and very encouraging what we're doing right now. But I emphasize we're not looking at a different type of braiding of carbon fiber. We're literally starting at the molecular level of developing our own thermopas.

up with peak Locate. We're going to We've already we're already waist deep in discussion of use of licensing Peak Locate to other manufacturers, many of whom you've already mentioned on your show or on this podcast with we're not nearly as far down the path with the materials we're developing the thermoplastics, but be fair to say that we anticipate developing this material and being in probably a similar situation as MG has been to Titanol, and licensing it to other manufacturers.

Takes a sandwich construction which involves a pockey's glues, resins, some heat and this impresses it pull them out your points well made. Every pair of skis is handmade. They just are made too through them.

multi material elements coming into a machinery process. To automate skis in manufacturing, basically take us out of the mimiograph era and do what maybe the Healtt Packard group did developed laser printer. We're well down the path on that working with this group, and be fair to we call it Project Treadstone because it's I thought that was kind of a funny reference. Obviously, with the absence of your smiling, it wasn't funny enough. Maybe you can help me owe

a new name. But we're getting pretty far down the path to basically re engineer the entire process by which skis are made, and it has to do with materials coming in, the components, how they come together and come out. The other elements are probably not It's not going to look much in a year to maybe nine months to twelve months from now. We'll help a prototype over in Germany and be fair to say that it won't look anything like how skis are made today.

little bit. Master's and engineering work with K two for quite a while. You knows skiing. He's a passionate skier, mountain guy, used to be a ski patroller for a big sky. He gets it and putting body together with Darren, it's great, it's fantastic. I'll drop something on here in a second new ski. It'll be a scoop if you will. We're probably gonna launch in late October seventy eight Underfoot for the European market and also the US skier primarily

East Coastkier that wants narrow underfoot ski. But Darren's been really critical on advancing these initials, including the work with Bealer and this engineering process. I have to make mention that the reliance on glues, residents and epoxyes on this current process skis when they get retired, where do they go? Right? And not as bad as lithium ion batteries, But if they don't become atirontic chairs or fences around some people's backyards, they end up in a dump and those gluz residents

and epoxyas are not good for the environment. In our case. One of the five primary development criteria include the same process by which we make the skis, the same materials of processes by we're able to deconstruct those exact skis after they're retired and retask those materials.

and we buy skis from them. Very common Black Crows make their skis at Elan. There's fact to do these factory tours with all the manufacturers. I'm just amazed how many skis. I thought, Wow, I never even thought about who makes their skis, But they're made here. So it's the vast majority of skis that you know of are made by these big factories.

credibility and impact as body Miller's name has. It's a brand new ski and a market full of traditionalists skeptics, understandably skeptics, and so yeah, we did not have as much pickup and traction and demand as we thought we would in the September through November December timeframe. We turned the corner on New Year's and so set that aside. We're also a direct to consumer eCOM company. We have some excellent strategists and tech. I have this Chief Marketing

Officer or I caller, our digital marketing assassin. So we do a lot of testing. And our industry is small enough. It's not like anhyder or cold companies or beer companies have big enough market to go test demand at price points and those kinds of things. We don't have that luxury. So in this case we're doing recon as much as anything to see what bundles, what offers move right. We've done a lot of that, binding ski bundles, multiple bundles, a lot of it's testing, and yeah, a lot of

it's to sell. This case, the two for one we ran for ten days. I think it was in January, and unlikely we will go back to that, but we learned a lot through that process. Well to learn Number one, I was called by a couple of friends saying, whoa you guys desperate in a tough spot?

the mountain and we wanted to do that quickly. We know the demand curve in the traditional sense of hard goods and ski business labor day through mid January. But running key resorts, I know that the forty two percent of most revenue is made in between presidents in late March.

There's a lot more demand out there just the traditional distribution system, and the ski business doesn't know how to deal with that because they've already pushed all their product through the retailers and they're barely able to know who's buying what let alone. I mean that from a consumer perspective, not volume, but there's a lot not known. In our case, we learned a truckload through that sale and other bundles and other packages we put out there, and yeah, it went well.

overhauled the skis or it's a whole new model. Twenty four to twenty five there will be a host of changes for the design of the skis, some of them substantial, some of them not. One of them will be the high likelihood of integration of peak located into every pair of skis.

ski in different lengths. We make it just for these lengths, and then other people there are certain skis identical, but everyone knows no, you've got to buy it in this length, not that length. So there's a lot of variables. And as you say, uh, okay, Amazon, I'm a big Amazon fan. Customer service is amazing as long as you don't abuse it. If you send back four fifty five inch TVs, they will say we're not going to sell anything anywhere.

And it's just not necessarily anything other than our chosen path. That said, we have this patentable, patentable cut out that we call the Keel. I was dragged kicking and screaming into naming it. I didn't want to, and the main reason being upon Titanol and other things. The industry has

been void of real true hardcore innovation. It's been a whole bunch of really nifty, tricky names flipping this and that, core this, you know, Titanum, all that stuff, And I wouldn't say it feel like a sucker, but we came into this bob as contrarian's skeptics. That has fed our development of our business model that includes I don't want to name it because it sounded like yet another iteration of nifty sizzly crap that doesn't necessarily but we had to name it, so like, okay, we'll call it keel

because we have to. We have to name it something, and it makes a difference. And now we have a patent in place and we're in a good spot. But everything about our company is straight up. We don't speak

in hipster's talk. In fact, inside our company there's a ten dollars fine anytime you use the words like disruptor or that kind of hipster talk, that these are words that used to mean something as a Middlebury graduate or I would be shocked if you don't have an appreciation for how the English language has been diluted in this case. These are words you used to mean something. Now they've been so abused by many in the industry, including advertising folks,

that they don't have any value. In our case, we just say say things extremely straight up, fashion, blunt, force, trauma, like you said about ten minutes ago, point plank. Everything about our company is straight up. How we communicate the customers, the truth matters. We're not like, we're not going to be pulling out stuff that is sisily marketing bs and trying to convince people to buy our skis based on that. It's a different deal. We just hey, look man, Body

and I are retired guys. We have a lot of time on our hands. We have some experience, and we think we can do this pretty well, including the strategic initiatives. But that's just a no bullshit coach to how we come into this world of making skis and selling skis. And good news is we've done well in some of the ski ratings and write ups and we're prideful in that.

But there's we're just getting started. Body's got a notebook full of ideas and there's more to come on the skis themselves, as well as these other initiatives.